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Lot Essay
Wang Yidong is widely considered a leading painter of Chinese Neo-realism. By manifesting his fervent love for his homeland and people through an artistic style that incorporates vocabularies of Western Classicism, the artist creates a visual effect that is both distinct and indelible. Happy Together portrays a young couple exchanging their pledge of love in a snowy landscape, as the work merges its evocative theme and stylistic expression in an ethereal setting. This work illuminates the artist’s pursuit of beauty, constructing a realm of tranquility and peace for the viewer as an escape from the mundane world.
The naturalistic and subtle brushwork reveals not only the artist’s excellent skills in realistic painting, but also his love for the homeland through the lens of idealism. Wang said: “I wish to capture this beautiful moment of love rather than that of suffering. While suffering and tragedy carry significant emotional power, only beauty can truly captivates people.” In the painting, the young lovers lie on a white snowy ground, facing each other. The man tenderly holds the girl’s right hand, putting on a silver bangle for her as engagement vow. With a gleam in her eyes, the girl looks as if she was gazing at the man, or dreaming of the future. The scene brings to mind the faithful love depicted in the poetry of Su Wu: “Tying the knot as man and wife, our love for each other shall always ring true.”
The artist’s detailed rendering in the painting—from the girl’s lustrous black hair, the patterns and snow on her clothes, to the man’s faintly flushed ears—offers multiple layers of delicate visual hints into their inner worlds for the viewer. Born in Linyi, Shandong, Wang has taken tremendous inspirations from the folk arts of the region. In Happy Together, red, black and white—a colour repertoire found in traditional woodblock paintings from Shandong—come together in a striking contrast. The girl’s red jacket shines like a pungent and carefree spirit against the snow. In addition to symbolising Chinese rural aesthetics, the colour red also interweaves both cultural connotation and vital passion of the lovers into the painting. In capturing this wondrous moment of love, Wang expresses his profound affection for his homeland. This way of interpretation resonates with aestheticism and romanticism, bringing to light the multidimensionality of the artist’s identity.
In Happy Together, Wang’s daring choice of setting, the modelling of the figures, along with the size of the work demonstrate the artist’s exceptional vision and craft, as he takes the viewer into a world of both dramatic tension and purity. The horizontal composition conveys a theatrical effect, while the bright yellow leaves in the foreground evokes the effect of stage curtain being slowly drawn apart, directing the audience’s attention to the couple at the centre. In contrast to the composition of Sandro Botticelli’s Venus and Mars in which the figures are pulling away from each other, the couple in this work lie on their stomachs, facing while approaching each other, as their emotional connection resounds across the painting. The lovers’ eyes shimmer with subtle emotions and innocence against the snowy backdrop. Lying down together in the snow, the lovers’ posture hint at their complete openness to embrace love. The scene is drenched in bright sunlight, rendering a sense of serenity that come to life on the canvas.
Wang’s work echoes Michelangelo Pistoletto’s painting on polished stainless steel in the expression of drama. The former not only instils dramatic tension into realistic painting, but incorporates imprints of Chinese culture into his art, preserving the sense of history while also imbuing it with contemporaneity. The artist’s choice of an ethereal setting expresses the lovers ’ fantasy of a transcendent place of love. Such a pure connection takes us beyond that mundane world; it leads us into the subjects’ inner worlds that lie between reality and dream, echoing the bliss that is encapsulated in the phrase “Happy Together”.
The naturalistic and subtle brushwork reveals not only the artist’s excellent skills in realistic painting, but also his love for the homeland through the lens of idealism. Wang said: “I wish to capture this beautiful moment of love rather than that of suffering. While suffering and tragedy carry significant emotional power, only beauty can truly captivates people.” In the painting, the young lovers lie on a white snowy ground, facing each other. The man tenderly holds the girl’s right hand, putting on a silver bangle for her as engagement vow. With a gleam in her eyes, the girl looks as if she was gazing at the man, or dreaming of the future. The scene brings to mind the faithful love depicted in the poetry of Su Wu: “Tying the knot as man and wife, our love for each other shall always ring true.”
The artist’s detailed rendering in the painting—from the girl’s lustrous black hair, the patterns and snow on her clothes, to the man’s faintly flushed ears—offers multiple layers of delicate visual hints into their inner worlds for the viewer. Born in Linyi, Shandong, Wang has taken tremendous inspirations from the folk arts of the region. In Happy Together, red, black and white—a colour repertoire found in traditional woodblock paintings from Shandong—come together in a striking contrast. The girl’s red jacket shines like a pungent and carefree spirit against the snow. In addition to symbolising Chinese rural aesthetics, the colour red also interweaves both cultural connotation and vital passion of the lovers into the painting. In capturing this wondrous moment of love, Wang expresses his profound affection for his homeland. This way of interpretation resonates with aestheticism and romanticism, bringing to light the multidimensionality of the artist’s identity.
In Happy Together, Wang’s daring choice of setting, the modelling of the figures, along with the size of the work demonstrate the artist’s exceptional vision and craft, as he takes the viewer into a world of both dramatic tension and purity. The horizontal composition conveys a theatrical effect, while the bright yellow leaves in the foreground evokes the effect of stage curtain being slowly drawn apart, directing the audience’s attention to the couple at the centre. In contrast to the composition of Sandro Botticelli’s Venus and Mars in which the figures are pulling away from each other, the couple in this work lie on their stomachs, facing while approaching each other, as their emotional connection resounds across the painting. The lovers’ eyes shimmer with subtle emotions and innocence against the snowy backdrop. Lying down together in the snow, the lovers’ posture hint at their complete openness to embrace love. The scene is drenched in bright sunlight, rendering a sense of serenity that come to life on the canvas.
Wang’s work echoes Michelangelo Pistoletto’s painting on polished stainless steel in the expression of drama. The former not only instils dramatic tension into realistic painting, but incorporates imprints of Chinese culture into his art, preserving the sense of history while also imbuing it with contemporaneity. The artist’s choice of an ethereal setting expresses the lovers ’ fantasy of a transcendent place of love. Such a pure connection takes us beyond that mundane world; it leads us into the subjects’ inner worlds that lie between reality and dream, echoing the bliss that is encapsulated in the phrase “Happy Together”.